Cracking the Star Trek Online Backstory

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What the heck is a Gorn Hegemony?

By Nick Kolan

I've been playing a lot of Star Trek Online. I posted a few thoughts on it last week, and I'm going to have many more thoughts to post next week (in the form of a review!) but, while I'm pretty well versed in all things MMO, I must come clean and admit that I, personally, don't know anything about the larger history of Star Trek. It's not that I don't like Star Trek; I did watch many episodes of the spin-off of the original series where Captain Kirk becomes a high-powered Boston lawyer. I can also do that hand thing. The thing with the fingers. You know what I'm talking about.

So, being that I'm reviewing it, I felt obligated to try to immerse myself as best I could in the story behind Star Trek Online, so I could later give a fair analysis of how well the game fits in the franchise's history. Now, Cryptic made a couple videos (part one here, part two here) not long ago with the goal of getting players and potential-players up to speed on the events leading up to the point in time that the game takes place. From the standpoint of someone like myself, however, those videos meant nothing. What the heck is a Gorn Hegemony?

I'm pretty sure Gorn dentistry is part of the whole Starfleet training program.

STO takes place about thirty years after the events of the film Star Trek: Nemesis, which Wikipedia (always reliable) informs me was "the least commercially successful in the franchise, and was poorly received by the majority of critics". Basically, the year is 2379, and Professor Xavier from the X-Men movies is in space and an evil clone of him (who looks nothing like him) has taken over the planet Romulus from his clone-home-world of Remus and also plans to kill lots of people with special magic radiation. The Professor, who changed his name to Jean-Luc Picard and learned how to walk again, stops this from becoming a major catastrophe, but not before some Romulan politicians are turned into dust. The Romulans, by the way, share a common ancestry with the Vulcans (think Spock), but – whereas the Vulcans are super logical and detached, the Romulans are opportunistic and passionate. As I type this, I have to wonder if it is racist to make wild generalizations about fictional aliens. The Remans are basically Romulans who live on Remus instead of Romulus and are therefore totally inferior and good only for slave labor. Also, Whoopi Goldberg is in the film at some point.

What happens after that? Well, according to the catch-up video, the Romulans and the Remans are plunged into civil war as a result of the events of Star Trek: Nemesis. Two years later, the Klingons decide to take advantage of the in-fighting and begin to invade Romulan territory. The Klingons are those guys with the forehead ridges, the glam-rocker hairdos and the language that hardcore trekkies take it upon themselves to learn. They also get all riled up in the pants-region at the prospect of fighting.

Maybe if you pout hard enough the Klingons will stop fighting!

At this point, according to the video, the Federation "denounces" the Klingon invasion, and the Klingons state that they're merely retaking what was rightfully theirs. What this means is that the Federation are like "HEY" and the Klingons are all "What?" and the Federation says "Quit doing that" and the Klingons are like "they started it!" and then the Federation gives them a disapproving look but doesn't actually do anything to stop the massacre.

So there's this other race called the Gorn. I guess they're like lizard-people or something? Anyway, in 2384, the Gorn and the Klingons have a skirmish which escalates into a full-scale war, meaning the Klingon are now fighting both the Romulans and the Gorn separately. Woops! Even with the Klingons fighting on two fronts, the Romulans are getting completely pummeled, and continue to do so for another seven years. A year after that, in 2392, peace talks mediated by the sissy Federation break down when the Gorn ally themselves with the Nausicaans, who are basically a whole species of pirates. Not the kind of pirates who download music illegally, or are Johnny Depp. These are the murdery-kind of pirates. They also look like Predator.

Separated at birth?

The year 2395 rolls around, and an important Klingon figure – Durad, leader of the House of Duras (a faction within the Klingon race) – is attacked by three-legged shapeshifters called the Undine. Despite being outnumbered nine legs to two, Durad manages to kill two of them and capture the third. It turns out these shapeshifters were sent to try and replace Durad and slowly manipulate the Klingons for their own mysterious goals. It turns out that the Gorn leader fell prey to the same plan seven years prior (the Undine are kind of slow I guess), which is why they attacked the Klingons in the first place.

The Orions – who are green skinned, and also pirate-like (and who, I am informed, are also frequently banged by various starship captains) – team up with the Klingons and totally beat the scales out of the Gorn, eventually capturing their home planet. The Nausicaans rapidly fall afterwards. Naturally, having had millions of their people wiped out, the Nausicaans and Gorn happily fight alongside the Klingons and Orion by the time the game-era rolls around.

Who wouldn't hit that?

Before then, in 2404, however, the Klingons stake an "ancient claim" to an area that the Federation currently occupies, and demands that the Federation leave, and take all traces of ever having been there with them. Unable to master the ability to beam entire buildings off of planets, a year later a complimentary Klingon Removals Service arrives and begins to forcibly remove civilians from one of their "anciently claimed" planets. Star Fleet creates a blockade to prevent this. In retaliation, the Klingons invade the Arachnis sector, which has long stood between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, and by the time 2409 – the year the game takes place – rolls around, the war is in full swing.

So, to summarize, the Klingons spent thirty years being badasses, and the Federation did…science, I guess? Who knows! Within the game, at least for the first dozen levels or so, the majority of your dealings seem to be with independent pirate factions, and very small offshoots of the Klingon empire. Also, strangely enough, your very first interaction with the game pits you against the Borg who seem to have spent the thirty years between Nemesis and Online in hibernation. The Undine, meanwhile, seem to play a subtle but major role in the overall story arc.